Washington Heights Car Chase, Shooting Was All About Drugs

As many of our astute commenters suspected, it was a drug deal gone bad that sparked Wednesday night's wild car chase and fatal shooting in Washington Heights. It was originally reported that a man had flagged down a patrol car screaming that he was robbed and pointing to a silver Cadillac a few car lengths ahead, near West 170th street. And while police say it's true that the man and his buddy were robbed—of somewhere between $500 and $1,200 cash—it's now confirmed that the robbery was a pot deal gone bad.

The deal went sideways around 8 p.m. after the unidentified buyers handed over at least $500 to Maximo (Flaco) Pequero, who's out on parole after serving nearly three years in state prison after getting busted with 13 bags of crack cocaine. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne tells the Times that Pequero handed over "something that resembled marijuana, but was not." The dupes only realized it after Pequero and his associates started driving off, but they were able to flag a cop before he got away completely.

A chaotic 15 minute chase ensued, with multiple squad cars joining as Pequero careened through Washington Heights, crashing into parked cars, a motorcycle rider and a pedestrian, both of whom escaped with minor injuries. Finally, a plain clothes officer, Chris Labate, stood in the street with his partner, a sergeant, on the sidewalk. A witness reportedly heard them them yell, “Police, freeze!” and “Stop, police!” as Pequero drove directly at Labate. Browne tells the Times Labate fired once through the windshield when the Cadillac was five feet from him, then Pequero "reversed, rammed a car behind him, and then, tires smoking, drove again at the officer, who stepped to the side and fired once into the passenger door."

The NYPD Patrol Guide bars cops from shooting at a moving vehicle if the car is the only weapon being used, but there is an "overarching" guideline that allows them to shoot if there's risk of getting hurt. Pequero, who was unarmed—except for, you know, the car—was hit in the neck and died at the scene; his three passengers were arrested. A friend of Pequero tells the Daily News, "They didn't need to shoot him. There was no gun [and] they never found no gun." As for the would-be drug buyers who prompted the chase, they're being treated as witnesses.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in News on July 24, 2009 10:50 AM

Comments [rss]

CrazyGrl215

YOU PEOPLE REALLY SHOULD NOT LOOK DOWN ON THIS PERSON BECAUSE OF THE LIFE THAT HE LIVED. FOR SOME OF YOU TO COME OUT AND SAY SOME OF THE THINGS YOU SAID IS VERY HURTFUL AND DISGUSTING. HOW DARE YOU SAY ONE LESS PIECE OF GARBAGE. YOU DIDN'T KNOW HIM TO SAY THAT. THIS WAS A GOOD MAN WITH A VERY GOOD HEART. THIS WAS SOMEONES SON, BROTHER, BOYFRIEND AND/OR FRIEND. I CAN SAY FROM PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE THAT HE WILL BE MISSED BY MANY PEOPLE. GONE BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN. R.I.P FLACO. YOU WILL ALWAYS BE IN OUR HEARTS AND IN OUR MEMORIES.

thefacts

Why is holding one joint generally acceptable, but holding 500 is not?

At what precise number is society harmed?

Steven

No surprise with the amount of cash the person was carrying. One less career drug dealer off the streets.

sharpshoota

Arrest the victims of the scam as well. Put them in the same cell with the perps. Get all the scum off the streets. pussies

Guest

It's a shame...that the cops didn't shoot and kill all of them.

imadick

the world would be better if there were more people like you. we should wish death on strangers we read a sentence about on the internet.

and can't we all hope that the police have the right to shoot the bad guys. it would be just like judge dredd!

hotstepper

if you get screwed over in a drug deal, you don't get your money back. don't be a pansy-ass and tell the cops. take that shit to the streets and handle your business.

nicemarmot

Seriously. Why didn't the cops arrest them?

Dirk

"They didn't need to shoot him. There was no gun [and] they never found no gun."

Uh... he was trying to run the cop over. No surprise the cop shot him.

yamon

Having lived in Washington Heights for several years, I can say this story doesn't surprise me in the least. Not the smartest cookies up thar, I once saw kids getting busted for smoking pot not 3 blocks from Ft. Tryon Park - where you can smoke to your hearts content hidden amongst the trees.

Guest

Yeah, but being busted smoking in a park can be a felony, while smoking on the street is just a misdemeanor. So, those kids might be smarter than you think.

db

Kudos NYPD *golf clap*

Tpooh2

Wow. Wow.

More deaths and more people that may have to go into our already crowded jails for a little bit of bud?

I know I may start a shitstorm of comments, but NY needs to follow the CA way of thinking, legalize it for use medically.

As with alcohol and tobacco, the goverment needs to let the people make their own decision about what they put into their own bodies.

Mott the Hoople

i predict that your edgy big city coffee shop will fail within...let's say, the first 6-12 months, and when it does you will try to hawk the faux-experimental art you'd hung on the walls of the doomed coffee shop. but no one will buy the finger paintings, just as nearly no one bought your gritty and uninspired pot brownies. then you will be so far in debt, you will not be able to afford your precious precious drugs, whether legal or illegal, and will likely turn towards some other unsavory way of wrangling a buck, thus landing yourself in hard cold prison, where you do belong and where, as i've heard on the news, the dope flows pretty freely. so what i'm saying here, i guess, is good luck with all of that, dopesmoker.

Tpooh2

You might want to take a deeper hit of the bong to get the stick out your ass. Take your soapbox and go shake your fist somewhere else.

As for your "prediction"...lulz...some of us didn't suffer when the market crashed.

Also, reflect on your negative thoughts and wishes, as even those will come back to bite you in the ass.

ForrestWhitaker

I'll take a booth, right by the window, TPooh. And this poor guy (Mott) seems to be an avid glue sniffer or something.

Mott the Hoople

you still don't get it. i was making a mockery. you're the one making assumptions. don't take everything at face value. i imagine you would have learned that in grad school, if not in undergrad. pax tecum, hippies.

Mott the Hoople

you're not paying close enough attention. saying "deeper hit of the bong" implies i was hitting a bong, when indeed you're responding negatively because i profess an anti-bongripping stance. it's like you're debating yourself there, bongripper! also, i didn't mean to say that you were presently in dire financial straits. i was rather meaning to argue that your affinity for cannabis will not keep your cafe fantasy afloat. oh, and one last thing, wishes don't actually–poof!–come true. the whole notion is just a simple-minded way of arguing for the productive power of imagination. imagination. imagination, imagination. imagination? imagination. get it?

Tpooh2

Mott...honey...

I've smoked my way through college and grad school while working full time. In no way, shape or form can you ever judge who I am or what I do in the privacy of my own home.

You assume way too much about people that smoke and you really should open your eyes to the decriminalization. Live your own life and form opinions based on your own experiences, not on what you read in the papers and see on the news.

I'm done with this...its 3pm and I need to be home by 4:20. ;-)

Mott the Hoople

you're high out of your mind. people who drink on the road or people who smoke whatever–crack,dirty dirty meth, tobacco, pot–should be locked up. end of story. we should have no tolerance for drugs. the reason the great nation of america is stuck in this economic piece of poop and vomit and boogers is because of our government and the actual good people's refusal to step up the game and put any all drug users in maximum lockup for the rest of their lives. then the sober people who wake up at dawn and drink their coffees and have their eyes set on the real prizes of a good job a good car a good house and family and beach retirement and good morals and a centralized govt. over 300 million people can go back to make the world run smoothly like it was before all the beat hipi generation and the civil rights movement.